Diversity in the hobby

[JoeyF1981]

I hope I didnt offend anyone and Im not trying to start anything negative on here. I just wanted to get peoples opinions on it based on a comment my co-worker said. I could care less about race or background. The fact that we all share the same passion should be enough for anyone. It does seem like others on here share the same opinion as me and no one really knows how many african-americans are collectors. Just based off of what Ive seen there doesnt seem to be alot

[prewarsports]

You should be allowed to talk about race and issues surrounding it as much as you want as long as you are not doing it with purposefully nefarious intentions. To not talk about it because you are scared you might offend someone is the reason why we are so uptight in this country. We should talk about it more (and before any of you get angry I said that because I am white, I have EIGHT adopted black brothers and sisters and I have found that talking about it openly is BY FAR the best option for any issues surrounding Race at all).

Having said that, I have only met a few African Americas in all the years of collecting in ANY area, Antiques, Sports Collectibles, Art Photography etc. Some of the ones I have met though are wonderful people and extremely passionate about what they love!

[itjclarke]

Originally Posted by prewarsports

You should be allowed to talk about race and issues surrounding it as much as you want as long as you are not doing it with purposefully nefarious intentions. To not talk about it because you are scared you might offend someone is the reason why we are so uptight in this country.... I have found that talking about it openly is BY FAR the best option for any issues surrounding Race at all).

100% agree. Talking about and trying to truly understand these issues is far more interesting and better than simply staying on the "right side" of that PC fence. Not to come down on PC rules and behavior, which are much better than some ugly alternatives, but I also think this "correctness" can make it really difficult to progress as a society and truly understand others' POV.

Not that I'd expect race to be an everyday conversation on a baseball card forum, but I have no problem Joey's question and think it's relevant.. and to take it a step further, I'd love it if baseball and the collecting community were to become more diverse with time. It would only help the long term health and outlook for both. Baseball really has some work to do. No doubt it's definitely grown internationally but domestically it has almost completely lost entire racial/socio-economical segments. It always bums me out to think of how many of the all time greats were urban kids/immigrants' kids/etc (Dimaggio, Lazerri, Gomez, Williams, Koufax, Greenberg, Heilman, etc)... now, in the days of travel ball, it seems it's becoming far more a sport of whose parents can fly their kids to year round tournaments and afford the best personal batting coaches, etc. Not that I hold a grudge against those who do this, but it doesn't seem like an even playing field. I do hope with better enforcement of PEDs/lower power numbers, coupled with hightening health/safety concerns with football that baseball will begin to attract more elite pure athletes... maybe begin to pull in some people who have otherwise turned away from it.

[howard38]

Perhaps fewer black people collect vintage because there are so few pre-war cards of black players available. Is the percentage of black collectors the same for post-war and/or modern cards?

[Tim Kindler]

Joey,
No problem with you bringing it up. You were just stating an observation brought on by a co-worker in a conversation. No offense was taken by me at least. And I hope none was taken on account of my remarks. My points in my threads were simply that I had never thought about anything like that before. I am not trying to disregard your thoughts with my responses, its just that in our hobby, my only concern has always been only sharing our collecting passions with each of us whom are honest collectors. Every other aspect of a person I never even think about.
Happy Collecting and Take Care,
Tim Kindler

[drcy]

Joey's post/observation was fine by me. Nothing offensive about it. I've thought about the topic before.

Of course, few women collect baseball cards also.

I don't have an answer to it all. Something to think about.

I wonder if there is a larger percentage of blacks who collect modern basketball cards-- where there clearly are a larger percentage of black players, stars and legends. I would imagine there are, but that's just speculation.